Cant get my economy right

You need more morale boosting buildings, or just upgrade them. Take some off your tax and spending. Keeping spending at 100% is not that easy, so just save big tax and full spending until you need to or feel like rush building. If your playing on a fairly big map with lots of habitable planets you should start with 0% tax, 100% spending. It'll help your race's morale thru the game and will keep the morale when you reach the planet grab phase. That'll help you keep relatively high morale while managing to stay in the greens (profit).And, also try putting more spending % in social (economy). If all else fails, research much more for economy (e.g. Xeno Economics). It'll lower other stats, but it will lift your economy. Think of it as a last but not that desperate effort to save your economy.   

Developing Morale, Economy, and Research resources are a big boost -- also the morale and economy boosting techs can help -- but really you do not need population to go above 11B -- put them bad boys on troop transports and do a little conquesting. But usually if I have a moral resource, i can do population up to 17B with a good tax rate and no morale boosting facilities except a stock market or 2.

Also i disagree about keeping spending at 100%, i put it at 100% and leave it there the whole game. But if one were to make too many factories or labs, spending could spiral out of control. I take advantage of all production and research bonus tiles but otherwise only put in the equivilant of 3 factories/ world and only put lab facilities in on none bonus tiles on my technological capital world ( if even there ).

Hmm..don't think I've ever touched the spending button. I feel now that I may be missing something...what does it affect, exactly?

Spending, lol.

Example: you have 100 production capacity, 60 research capacity
military production % is 40%
social production % is 40%
research % is 20%

if spending is 100% then you spend
40bc on basic military production
40bc on basic social production
12 bc on basic research

if spending is set to 50% -- halve those values

Don't bite off more than your economy can chew! Too many projects at one time will drive costs up. Use 75-85% industrial capacity, using more just eats up money without much added benefit in most cases that I've found. Don't upgrade ships that are level 0. Start new builds and decomission the old ones as new ships come out (don't quick buy unless there's an emergency). Morale resources are useful, so grab them. If you get too much going at one time, you'll either have to resolve the economic crisis with a military conquest to expand, or stop some projects to free up funds. For example, your ecomony might not be able to sustain building 15 structures, researching a weapon, maintaining a fleet, and pay for other operating costs simultaneously. Drop some of the unecessary building projects, or stop work on the latest warships if they are not immediately needed, etc. That's what's helped me so far.

don't get too worked up over population. you need to build it as fast as you can, but having a big population is not the best way to a fat bank acct. PQ 6-12 only build one farm, and upgrade it as needed. you should need no morale tiles to take care of these planets. above 12 put a second farm and 2 morale tiles. that will be plenty to build a monster economy. understand, this is not metaverse advice, just regular game advise. in MV population is much more important. now, put the factories, labs, whatnot you need and fill every other tile with stock markets. i am probably averaging around 7 stockmarkets per planet with a neutral race. the +10 morale per market is enough to take care of that 15b pop on your smaller planets and 2 morale tiles handle the 25b just fine. you can have a very healthy income even maintaining 100% morale this way. or jack up the tax rate to cash in that extra morale if you like.

Make sure that you research better morale buildings before better farms. Usually I don't research farms at all.

And make trade routes, it will help your economy but not your morale. Many people say trade is worthless in GCII, but I use it and it makes big $$$.

If you can find a class 13-26 or above planet.Then put one entertainment building to boost morale,one starport and fill all but one tile with trade centres and upgrade them to stock markets,Leave one tile for economic capitol..i did this and i got a class 26 planet generating 668 credits per turn.

If you dont have a high class planet i.e 13-26 class or above near you..select your highest class planet and follow the above procedure,then after researching xeno ethics select neutral..this upgrades your planets giving you more tiles to cram em with stock markets and gives you additional trade routes too.

Build a strong network of economy starbase and max out your trade routes.also needless to say grab as many economic resource bonus asap and morlae resource to..they help in a HUGE way and research morale boosting bulidings when you av a solid economy and a strong millitary to protect your economy...hope it all helps..good luck

If you can find a class 13-26 or above planet.Then put one entertainment building to boost morale,one starport and fill all but one tile with trade centres and upgrade them to stock markets,Leave one tile for economic capitol..i did this and i got a class 26 planet generating 668 credits per turn. If you dont have a high class planet i.e 13-26 class or above near you..select your highest class planet and follow the above procedure,then after researching xeno ethics select neutral..this upgrades your planets giving you more tiles to cram em with stock markets and gives you additional trade routes too. Build a strong network of economy starbase and max out your trade routes.also needless to say grab as many economic resource bonus asap and morlae resource to..they help in a HUGE way and research morale boosting bulidings when you av a solid economy and a strong millitary to protect your economy...hope it all helps..good luck

668/turn...That's not great at all. Once you get the planet to ~25 billion load it with stock markets, econ capitol and mind control center, it's easy to get over 2500/turn. And trade is not great unless you're playing a small map.

I know i know you've gotten around 2k/turn... Big deal. My economy can easily have a surplus of over 100k.

get a basic mid range trade routes as soon as possible. You don't turn the corner until trade kicks in usually, and a high morale helps build your pop up.

My last game at the end (september of third year) I was getting 7,131 income per turn, net profit of 2,235 per turn, at 65% tax (100% morale).

On trade routes, I had 12 routes running from home nine sectors to the Dark Yor homeworld (class 21, pop 10billion), with two fully loaded economic starbases on it, but only netted 603bc per turn at the end of the game. That's three years into the game, on the last turn, when the game is over.

7131 tax, 603 trade. Less than one tenth of my income. My conclusion: Trade is a waste of time and starship production, as far as trying to get money. It could be useful for friendship purposes, but as far as an economic resource, it's a tiny drop in the bucket.

End Game Save.zip

Pshaw, thats nothing.

First, I didn't get into any wars unless otherwise provoked. Nothing boosts your economy like peace. Second, NEVER research above xeno farms. In fact, don't even research that untill you have fully researched morale. Try to continually research morale and econ.

I used my industry planet as the hub of my trade routes (which barely brought in 200bc a week) and placed a fully loaded econ starbase over it. While it doesn't get you much money, haveing a freighter for each of the other civs keeps everyone friendly toward you, which lets you avoid most war, lowering the need for expensive fleet deployment and upgrades.

Also, get every last one of the morale boosting trade goods. Once you do that, you can get a population up to 27 billion with four virtual reality centers before morale starts to plummet. With a pop that high you get 130+/per week from that planet, and thats with ONE Sock exchange. Once you have 30+ worlds your getting 1000bc and more easy, with 60% tax and 100% spending.

take this advice start the game out on a note to keep ecomomy above a negative for a decent ammount of time this would require you to spend points on economy or better yet Trade put some points into these and you should stay out of the hole for a decent ammount of time... addressing you concerns though here we go!

One of my biggest issues I think is morale. If a planet's pop gets above 10-11b.. my morale just plummets.

population is only a number; morale is the overal mood of your citizens on the planet one thing that people will constanly overlook thinking the only way to improve this number is to build a large number of enertainment structures to level it off; when in fact there is more than one way to raise your morale on a planet! Start here a morale improving structure will only make a certain percentage of the total population happier meaning that it will have almost a negated effect against higher population levels if you scroll over the morale on the planet screen it tells you what is making your people unhappy the most those are usually taxes which have the highest effect SO lowering the overall taxation of your people will increase there overall morale MORE than a morale enhancing structure will because your population is ever expanding. also a high quality planet will help assist morale somewhat. Overpopulated planets are those which have simply too many people for the morale to stay at a high level I usually encounter this at around 20 billion people where higher pop will increase the affected morale and will inturn lower the morale faster. Just lower taxes at these points in time and you should be more stable at sustaining a morale that is high. ALSO before I forget research Star Federation the morale will substainually increase overall when your government is giving support to the populace in such a way.

Not researching farms is bull. You just need to make sure that you have the correct morale boosts in place. Generally i agree it's good to keep your entertainment level a level higher than the farms, but you generally will want to get advanced farms at some point to keep your population rising. If you don't get good morale resources i can understand stopping at 2 intense farms on large planets. At that level, they're generally easy to keep happy, and taxes can stay high.

Once you get Advanced farms, i generally find i need to lower taxes a little, but in general my economy keep rising because of the population growth. All you need to do is just keep building VR centers to keep them happy. Around 5 are generally needed at 25B for me.

The sweet thing with 25B planets, is they can just constantly crank out transports and the population will generally be stable. Of course all this is refering to planets generally over PQ14 or at least have morale bonuses on them.

Don't neglect your stock markets either - those 10% morale bonuses add up. And make a point of making sure you get Harmony crystals and Ultra spices. I don't have much trouble at getting an overall happiness in the high 90s.

TheStormWeaver said:

Pshaw, thats nothing.

That would carry a bit more weight if you posted some metaverse scores, demonstrating your superior standing.

So...beat me if you can.

Completely agree there AngleWyrm, his post is a bit goofy.

Not researching farms is bull. You just need to make sure that you have the correct morale boosts in place. Generally i agree it's good to keep your entertainment level a level higher than the farms, but you generally will want to get advanced farms at some point to keep your population rising. If you don't get good morale resources i can understand stopping at 2 intense farms on large planets. At that level, they're generally easy to keep happy, and taxes can stay high. Once you get Advanced farms, i generally find i need to lower taxes a little, but in general my economy keep rising because of the population growth. All you need to do is just keep building VR centers to keep them happy. Around 5 are generally needed at 25B for me. The sweet thing with 25B planets, is they can just constantly crank out transports and the population will generally be stable. Of course all this is refering to planets generally over PQ14 or at least have morale bonuses on them.

From a pure economy point of view, researching farms *is* bull. Well, actually the first improvement is worthwhile, but none beyond that. The most efficient configuration on *most* planets is one farm. Beyond that, you'll make more money putting stockmarkets down on the tiles you would otherwise be using for farms and the necessary morale buildings. On large planets where you're going to put down nothing but stockmarkets and the morale buildings you need, 2 or even 3 farms can be good.

You say a 25B planet is great for cranking out transports. All other things being equal, a planet with 2.5B population grows population as quickly as one with 25B. However, it's much, much easier to maintain 100% morale (and hence get the 100% pop growth bonus) on the smaller population planet. Therefore, assuming you want to be turning out the transports as fast as possible but sustainable forever, one farm planets with 100% morale are a better bet.

I clearly said for PQ14 or higher. I agree most planets should only have 1 farm. Advanced farms work real well on those planets, as the stock markets are enough usually to keep them happy. My point was researching farms pays off, because someone above was saying that better farms are crap...

I still disagree. 1 advanced farm can be matched by a couple of 2nd tier farms. Two advanced is too many, short of a crazy PQ 50 or something close. So overall you're saving 1 tile on all your money worlds. Also, you're going to have to either mess about making sure you get down your farms early on every other world (before you research the higher ones) or waste additional tiles on morale buildings on every planet. Given you don't actually need many money worlds, and that the 3rd and 4th tier farms are expensive to research, I think the advice to ignore farm improvements is pretty sound.

The first one, Xeno farming, is very cheap and I'd recommend taking it eventually, but even that one won't make a huge difference.

Ok whatever. I havn't tried doing just one farm everywhere, and i probably won't because population is key in metaverse scoring as well. I also like having a monster economy, so i have plenty of money worlds. It's nice to be able to upgrade entire navys, to be able to quick build a factory and a ship on each new planet, and never to be concerned with money.

I agree that folks should experiment here, and see what they like. New technologies are not always better.

quick build factories? no, quickbuild WONDERS! snatch them out from under other civs just before they complete them. BWAHAHAHAHAHA! bottom line is that money = flexiblity. nothing expands your options the way a fat bank acct does. and ALL of the top end improvements are worthwhile, some just are not high priority. top farm tech is not a very high priority but i is much better than wasting another tile on farms to get that population. it is a matter of thinking longterm. industrial sectors are expensive, but you only pay once and then you have higher production FOREVER. contrary to this trend is the glorious stockmarket. it is cheaper than the bank, and has bonus morale and influence thrown into the bargain. can't beat it with a stunclub. if you only build one farm per planet they can cover your morale needs all by themselves.

Well I belong to the school of "one farm only per colony" except maybe in money worlds (doesn't everyone??) , and I research farm tech upgrades whenever one of my colony starts to reach its limit.

I pretty much agree with Random50 on the farm issue. But I always go to war and use my population growth for Troops to invade, so there really isn't time to build up large populations, so no need for more than 1 farm and no need for more than Xeno Farms ( actually I don't even know what the next farm is -- never been in 1 of my games ).

However if 1 plays a peaceful game and does not go to war then better and more farms are probably good and maybe even essential. But economical payback on population decreases because taxes are related to the square root of the population in millions --- personally looks like 13-17B population is just fine and it is easy for me at least to keep a high tax rate in that population rate.